THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
ucts; and the belief is current among the
peasants in parts of Germany today that
the eel makes excursions on dry land,
more particularly on the approach of a
storm. This view, as either an inde
pendent or an imported creation, is like
wise held in various parts of America.
I was once obliged to combat, in a
reputable sporting journal, the contention
of an estimable angler that he had dem
onstrated that the common eel is the male
and the lamprey (which is not an eel, not
even a fish) is the female of one and the
same species. That was some years ago,
and popular knowledge of the eel has
since then increased; but if a person con
sults the recent files of sporting maga
zines and natural history periodicals of
a certain kind, he will see how the old
errors about the eel persist. As late as
the year 1913 it remained for a writer in
one of the best of our outing magazines
to report that the eel, when a year old,
ascends Niagara Falls and thus gains
access to the upper lakes.
THE EXTRAORDINARY CHANGES OF ITS
LIFE
In the fall the eels which have been
living in the fresh waters and have at
tained their full growth undergo peculiar
changes. The eyes in the males become
nearly twice the normal size, and both
sexes lose their dirty yellow-green color
and become silvery. Such eels migrate
downstream, traveling mostly at night,
and eventually reach the sea, where all
trace of them is lost. Their behavior in
the sea, the depths at which they swim,
their rate of travel, and whether in scat
tered bodies or in compact schools, are
some of the still obscure phases in the
eel's life.
The next evidence of these eels is met
with on the high seas, far from land, in
the form of their young progeny. The
larval eel is such a very different-looking
creature from the adult that no person
not properly instructed could by any pos
sibility recognize it. It is compressed
laterally to the thinness of a visiting
card; it has a small head, large eyes,
formidable, but apparently non-func
tional, teeth that project forward and
laterally; and the body is transparent
throughout, the fish being practically in
visible except for its glistening black
eyes.
The larval eel, known as the lepto
cephalus, undergoes an extraordinary
metamorphosis. It remains at sea for
about one year, during which time it at
tains a length of three inches. Its larval
state has then reached its climax, and in
its subsequent growth for a time the eel
actually becomes smaller! There is a
gradual change in form from the ribbon
like to the cylindrical, a shortening of
the body and of the intestine, and a
gradual assumption of the eel-like ap
pearance (see page 1145).
Fresh water has a great attraction for
the young eels, and as soon as they reach
the coasts, to which they are wafted by
currents and winds, they seek fresh
water streams and begin to ascend them.
When they first arrive they have little
pigment in their skin, but they quickly
acquire a brownish color, and by the
time they arrive as far upstream as, say,
the vicinity of Washington, they have
become quite dark.
Eels at the age when they begin their
ascent of the streams are called elvers, a
name that appears to have originated on
the River Severn in England and has
spread to all English-speaking countries
where eels are known. The upstream
movement of the elvers is known as an
eel-fare on the Severn, Thames, and
other English rivers, and this name also
has been transferred to America and
other countries.
"Fare" is from an
Anglo-Saxon verb meaning "to go" or
"to travel," and "elver" is a corruption
of eel-fare. The migration, coming in
late winter or spring, may last for a few
days or several weeks in a given stream,
and the young, closely skirting the shores,
may be in a practically unbroken column
during the entire period.
Some eels remain in the lower parts of
the streams and move back and forth in
the bays and estuaries, and others press
on to the headwaters, often surmounting
obstructions that would be impassable
for other fish, and remain there until full
maturity is attained.
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